My husband has been a livestock farmer alongside his management job on a nearby farm. Before applying for the job, he had a small supply store for farmers, dealing in seed, fertilizer, animal feed, and veterinary supplies. This business grew weaker with time till we closed as he concentrated on his job, and no one could attend to the business. It was unfortunate that his job ended some months ago, and have been at home trying to pick up pieces to restart the Agrovet business. The business was profitable under his management and is a new goal we are all looking forward to starting.

A lot changed in our village courtesy of GiveDirectly. Almost every household got a chance to invest in different projects with many buying livestock and also paying school fees. GiveDirectly gave every household the same support - a gesture that was welcomed by everyone in the village. It did its best and set a standard that any other organization will emulate in the future when running similar projects.

Providing for my family of seven has been a challenge in the past few months when we had to buy milk to supplement the dry period for the only dairy cow we had. Even though my household had a lot lined up to be accomplished, it was my prayer that we would invest more in livestock farming to minimize the cost of buying milk in the future. We could not buy a cow with the first transfer but were glad to finally find a good breed at KES 35000 with the second transfer. In addition, I spent KES 10000 on buying a calf from the neighborhood that I am currently rearing with the herd. I also paid school fees for my child in form two with the remaining amount. I needed to clear his term's fees to allow me more time to concentrate on other projects that will help in raising more money to pay for the coming terms.

It was almost 9 am and I was farming when suddenly I heard my phone which I had placed on the ground beside the farm ringing. I stopped to check it and I was so happy when I saw that I had received KES 55000 from GiveDirectly just as they had promised. I had been eagerly waiting for the SMS since I had heard from my father-in-law and other people saying that they had already received their transfers. My children who had accompanied me to the farm noticed my happiness and they asked me what was going on. I told them what had transpired since they had heard about GiveDirectly when they came to enroll us. They were so happy too and they jumped up with joy.

The transfer has brought a very big difference in our lives. We now have hopes that we will restart the agro-vet business again. I also no longer strain to look for money for buying food. This is because I was able to buy some with part of the transfer money.

We spent KES 50000 of our recent transfer on buying two cows. We bought one at KES 35000 and the other at KES 15000. We bought the cows to save the money. We had planned before we got the transfers that we were going to use the whole transfer amount and add some of our savings and restart an agro-vet shop. We had started the business before with the small capital that we had but it collapsed since there were other big agro-vet shops and some of the customers who use to take things on credit, took a long time to repay them. The agro-vet business used to help us a lot since we were able to meet all our needs, that is, to buy food and pay school fees for our children. When it collapsed, life became hard. My husband had to engage in some casual jobs such as selling cows at the market to get some money. He studied veterinary medicine in college and at times people casually seek his services. There is also a tractor for hire for farming and he has been casually employed to manage it. I, on the other hand, have trained as a primary school teacher but I have not been permanently employed. I am casually employed at a nearby school where they usually pay me KES 3000 per month. This money is little and is only enough for purchasing food and other household needs. We thus plan to sell the cows in the future and use the money in starting the business. With the remaining transfer amount, we bought maize for our consumption and some clothes.